


Color

by kyojinqueen



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, WOW this prompt made me sad, ereri, riren - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-01-21 04:57:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1538450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyojinqueen/pseuds/kyojinqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An au where everything is black and white until you meet your soulmate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> i think we all know where this is going.

I was told at a young age that I would never understand what the word “color” meant, or what is was, or anything about the damned thing. People say it’s used to describe the clothes we wear, the sky that hovers above us, the flashing signs that blink on and off and on and off with the same old “OPEN” written on it on in bland, cursive lettering. Everything is color--but only for those who have met their soulmate.

It’s a tragic life we live in--everything is black and white. They say those are colors, too, but aren’t seen much once you meet your soulmate. They say the sky is light blue, and the clouds are actually white puffs, much like cotton candy, instead of smudges in the sky. They say the leaves are green, flowers come in all different colors: pink, blue, violet, even white. They even say that people have different colors in their eyes, though we (us who haven’t found our soul mates) only see them as black, people have green eyes, blue eyes--even one green eye and one blue eye. They say once you see color, you’ll never want it to end.

And that’s the tragic part--once your soulmate dies, your world goes back to being black and white again. And since you can only have a single soulmate in your entire life, you can never experience the wonder that is color ever again. So that is generally why I told myself I would never find my soulmate. I would never put myself under the mental distress that is wondering when they will pop into my life and wondering when they will pop out. Everybody deserves to find their soulmate, yes, everybody but me. With over seven billion people in this world, I’m sure that can’t be too hard to accomplish.

I made it through high school without finding my soulmate or some shitty high school sweetheart, as people called it, and ultimately did not experience color. I was actually very thankful that god--if there was one, I never found myself to be much of a believer--didn’t put me through that. I hated my high school, and the people in it, so if I had to be paired up with one of them for the rest of my life, I might have offed myself.

I graduated first in my class and got a scholarship to study law. I felt it was law was very suiting for somebody like me. Lawyers, though some have experienced color, tend to see the law as black and white--definite--anyways. So that is what I went with. I decided to study intellectual property laws over the commonly favored law group for divorce and children’s custody. Most people who practiced law chose the latter because it was easier. Since you find your soulmate and experience color and blah blah all of that feelsy shit, you have no need to get a divorce. No need to file custody over your child. You should be happy. Though there are very, very rare cases of people’s worlds going back to black and white--though their soulmate has not died--because of a divorce. Those people are said to be damned to be loveless the rest of their lives for giving up a pairing that was “made by god himself”.

Though I found them a waste of my time, I always sat in on the cases or people getting divorces. Hearing one excuse after another: “They cheated on me!” “They took all my money!” “They can’t be my true soulmate!”

These cases really sealed it for me like a letter. Why should I go searching all my life to find a soulmate if I could wake up one day and realize that they might not actually be the one? Why should anybody put themselves through such a heartbreaking thing? While it didn’t really break my heart to see couples who have children, some young, some older, go through such a nasty thing as a divorce. I didn’t find it sad to the point that it broke my heart. My heart has always been broken. I didn’t need something such as a relationship to tell me that I have one. I didn’t need love to tell me that I was a broken soul.

After one of the divorce cases, which was closed in favor of the wife, I made my usual trip to the small coffee shop around the corner of the courthouse. As I walked through the door, everything looked the same as usual. The petite barista, Christa, stood at the counter and waved at me with a rather large smile on her face and said her usual greeting as I walked to the counter.

“The usual, Levi?” I nodded, and she proceeded the ring up my usual black coffee like it was second nature.

“Ymir!” She called to the woman in the back making coffee, “Levi wants the usual!”

“Does that old man ever want anything else to drink?” Ymir mused.

I looked up with a stale stare, “Nice to see you, too, Ymir.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she waved me off with her hand and brung my coffee over with a smile. I mumbled a “thank you” into the cup and sat at the usual empty table in the corner. Around this time, the streets were usually flooded with people and it was a migraine inducing hell to get through it. So I typically just sat here and read the news or went over cases for an hour.

I looked up to see Ymir, resting her elbows on the counter and her head laid comfortably in one of her hands. The way she looked at Christa, and the way Christa looked back at Ymir told me something from the first time I met them at this coffee shop.

The can see color. Together.

I let my gaze fall from the two and back to the newspaper. I didn’t take my eyes off the paper for another half an hour--this weeks crossword was rather hard. I heard a ringing of the phone and Christa writing down an order. I didn’t know they took orders over the phone for pick up. You probably have to be in some sort of mad rush to do that. I saw from my peripherals Christa laying the phone back down and walking toward Ymir telling her about the order. It was another couple of minutes before a customer stormed in, looking disheveled to hell and in a hurry. Ymir had just finished making their coffee when I looked up. I met eyes with the young man for a brief moment. And that’s when something clicked.

I was no longer seeing just black and white.

I was seeing in color.

And by the look of the young man who stood before me, he was too.

Something snapped within the figure standing in front of the counter and he rolled up the sleeve of his dress shirt and checked the time, mumbling a soft “shit!” to himself while slammed a few dollars on the counter and rushing out of the doorway.

I didn’t realized I was moving after him, chasing him, until I was outside of the coffee shop scanning figure after figure for the young man I met eyes with just a brief moment ago. Everything looked really new, to me. Like I had never been here before. Like I had never seen this city before. The lights had a dim hue of color to them. I looked up, the sky was a pale color--blue, I think is what they called it. But it wasn’t just blue. It was a mixture of other colors. Was this the sunset people talked so fondly of?

I looked back to the crowd of people swarming to get back to their homes and took a final glance, he was gone.

My supposed soul mate looked right at me and ran off.

This is exactly what I had feared.

 

 


	2. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Not everybody is out to get you. Remember that. You've got to at least try." I looked up, past the glass door of the coffee shop, past the crowd of people in the busy street. I walked out of the small shop and sighed. 
> 
> _You've got to at least try._
> 
> Trying is the first step to failure, I reminded myself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahah oh my god i totally forgot about this omg i'm such a bad writer my apologies  
> summer is here so i'll be less forgetful!! <3 i hope
> 
> but ayyy lmao i hope you guys enjoy the chapter and if you have any suggestions on where the fic should go from here lemme know on tumblr!!  
> kyojinqueen @ tumblr  
> and iguess if you guys want i'll start tracking fic: color
> 
> anyways enjoooyyyyy

I walked back into the coffee shop and sat down at the booth I previously claimed. I didn’t know what to think about what just happened--should I even think about it at all? I mused the idea that this was just a dream. That I would wake up soon and the world would be back to black and white, but when I rubbed my eyes and subconsciously pinched myself, I realized this was no dream. Whatever god there is in this world hates me enough to make me come in contact with my soulmate--and make them run away from me.

I wasn’t pissed, no, I was annoyed. I sure as hell wasn’t in love, either.

“Levi?” Christa walked over shyly and claimed the chair right in front of me. I looked up, unaware of the distaste in my expression till she frowned.

“What?”

“You can see it, can you?” She knew the answer to her own question already but for curiosity’s sake she asked anyways. Ymir brought up a chair right next to Christa to listen in, I assumed. I rolled my eyes and ran my hand through the shaved parts of my undercut.

“How’d you figure that one out?” I asked dryly.

“Nobody runs after somebody like that--especially you.” I let out a large sigh and started stacking my papers back into my briefcase.

“It’s not like it fucking matters any, Christa. I am not going to let a simple shift in my life, not even color, dictate who I am going to spend the rest of my life with. Especially since the little fuck ran away, anyways. Who’s to say I’ll ever see him again?”

I noticed Christa shift in her seat, clearly uncomfortable with my words. Ymir wrapped her arm around her and spoke. "Have a little more faith in people, will you, Levi?"

I snorted, "Faith is what gets people hurt." I sat up next to my chair and wrapped my hand around the handle of the briefcase. As I walked out of the small coffee shop, I heard Ymir call out to me, "Ay, Levi,"

I don't know why I stopped, but I did. I let my hand rest on the handle of the door and let my head droop down as she spoke.

"Not everybody is out to get you. Remember that. You've got to at least try."

I looked up, past the glass door of the coffee shop, past the crowd of people in the busy street. I walked out of the small shop and sighed.

_You've got to at least try._

Trying is the first step to failure, I reminded myself.

 

I looked down at my watch; since I hadn’t been called back into the firm I decided to take care of any other cases I decided to take it upon myself to take the rest of the day off. I heard that once you can see color, whether it be your choice or not to see it, you should go to the “color doctor”. There’s a fancier term for it, I suppose, but honestly it’s just an Optometrist that tells you exactly what the fuck color is and the names of different colors via a color chart. I didn’t think I’d ever have to visit one, but what better time to visit then now.

It wasn’t for another hour that I decided to actually go to the color doctor. I spent a good forty-five minutes sitting on my sofa trying to figure out any practical use for seeing color and came up just short of nothing; the last fifteen minutes before I actually left was spent researching color hoping I didn’t have to go and see this person who I firmly believe is a waste of a profession but I came up short in that department, too.

It was six in the afternoon when I rolled into the parking lot of the office the color doctor. I reluctantly stepped out of my vehicle and walked into the facility. The color doctor usually only accepts walk-ins, so just minutes after I sat down in the waiting room I was taken back to an even smaller room.

The walls were a shade of a different color I didn’t recognize. There were different paintings, all with an abundance of colors in each of them. Walking into the office space was overwhelming when just hours ago the only two colors I knew were black and white. I didn’t recognize the colors, but I was still fascinated that one artist can fit so many different shades of what just looks like the same color. Going from darker shades to lighter tints. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t aesthetically pleasing in the slightest. Something was calming by the way the colors smoothed into each other ever so subtly.

“Levi?” A cheery voice spoke out at me and shook me from my daydream. She motioned for me to take a seat with her head as she fixed her glasses on her nose.

“That’s me,” I took a seat in the chair in front of her desk.

“So I’m under the impression you can see color now?” I nodded, “If that’s true, then where is your significant other?”

It took me by surprise that when she spoke that sentence there was a pained feeling resonating in the bottom of my heart. I clutched my shirt right over my heart, like it had actually been in pain, and spoke, “It’s actually a funny story, Doc.”

She set her file down on her desk and wove her fingers together, “I’ve got time,” she said with a curious smile. “And just call me Hanji, I’m not one for formalities.”

“Well, shitty glasses, I was in a small mom and pop coffee shop today doing my usual business and this kid--the fucker honestly looked no older than twenty-one--walks in looking like he was running late for a meeting or something. I only caught a glimpse of him, just a single fucking glimpse, and next thing I know I’m no longer seeing in black and white and the little fuck is gone.

What pisses me off the most about this though is that ever since I saw him in that coffee shop today, I haven’t been able to get the vision of those bright fucking eyes out of my head. I don’t even know what color they are!”

Hanji jumped up like she either shit herself or jesus came to her, or a mixture of the two. I cocked a brow at her, honestly questioning her sanity, as she shuffled through a drawer in her desk and pulled out some type of chart and slammed it down on her desk.

"This, Levi, is a color chart. This color chart is electronic. You pick a base color from Roy G. Biv and it will tell you give you all the shades or tints of that color!"

"What the fuck is a Roy G. Biv?"

"Roy G. Biv is an acronym for every color found in the rainbow!"

"What the fuck is a rainbow?"

She sighed and laughed, pushing her glasses further up on her nose. "It stands for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. You'll be able to see that on the color chart as well. There's even a section where it shows you what two colors mix to make a different color," she handed me the tablet, "Keep it. I've got more of those." She smiled.

I ran my hands across the glass screen of the tablet before tucking it under my armpit and standing up. I nodded, essentially a silent "thank you", and took my leave.

"Levi!" She said, flicking a white card in my direction. "Call me if you need me! Or just wanna talk!" I picked up the card from the floor and read it.

_Dr. Hanji Zoë_

_Color Specialist @ Shiganshina Optics_

* * *

 

I couldn't sleep. No matter how hard I tried, I just could not sleep. Every time I closed my eyes all I could think of were those bright eyes. I felt myself falling asleep. Just looking at them had some kind of calming effect to it. But the moment I felt myself going under, they disappeared and nothing but busy streets and the sounds of rushing people filled my head. And I woke up again. It was a constant cycle.

I decided to give up on sleep. I looked over on my nightstand and eyed the tablet Hanji gave me earlier today. I picked it up and turned it on.

A loading screen appeared shortly after-- _Color Chart v 3.0_ , it said. It took a moment to update before displaying what I assume Hanji called "Roy G. Biv".

I clicked on the first color that caught my eye. The color chart listed it as a color called green. It opened up to a separate string of colors. Ranging from light to dark and everything in between. I scrolled until I found a color that looked all too familiar. It was bright and looked like it had a another shade of a color lightly mixed in. The chart identified it as _emerald_.

It was beautiful.

I clutched the color chart to my chest and it took me a just moment to fully realize where exactly I had seen this color from.

_Bright eyes._

* * *

 

I don't know when I fell asleep last night but I know now I would have been better off just staying up. I slept straight through my alarm and was on a fast track to being late for my job. This never happens, so being late once wouldn't hurt me one bit, but it still sucks to be in fucking traffic when you're already agitated. Which is exactly what happened to me today. Forty five minutes later I finally arrived at the fucking firm nothing short of pissed off.

I walked in calmly with my briefcase and went straight to my office. I hadn't been in there for five minutes when my assistant rang in for me.

"Levi?"

"What, Petra?"

"Erwin asked to see you in his office."

"Fuck me in the ass," I mumbled, rubbing my forehead. "Okay, yeah, sure tell him to give me a few."

"No problem, take it easy, Levi."

I took my sweet fucking time getting my shit out of my briefcase and organizing it on my desk before setting off for Erwin's office.

I ran my hand through my hair and checked my watch. I can't think of a single thing Erwin could possibly call me in his office for first thing in the morning. I could only pray that he wasn't going to talk to me about his new puppy again. Fuck that six foot six bastard and his goddamn--

_Oof!_

"What the fuck?" I said, lightly pushing myself outwards from the person that just ran into me.

"Oh shit, oh shit! I-I'm sorry!" He said bending down to pick up the stack of files he just dropped. I sighed and rubbed my forehead before bending down to assist him. I handed him the last file before standing back up and brushing my suit off.

"I'm really sorry," he said softly. "It won't happen again, sir."

I looked up at the young man, eyes wandering from is disheveled hair to his mouth to his nose to his--

Eyes.

_His emerald green eyes._

 

 


End file.
